Dave Smith is a bad coach

I agree there is a lot of tradition of success at OSU and Dave. Dave is a born winner.

This just shows how tough it is to win even with the most stacked team in NCAA history.

Some of his guys may not like cold weather but it didn't hurt Brian Musau, who gamely went for the victory. Dave Smith is a great coach who has developed countless runners and won multiple national championships. He doesn't need to buy a whole roster of foreign athletes to contend every year. In this case, it was a catastrophe given that talent, whatever the explanation. Given the point count on the top three teams, this was there for the picking and they just collapsed. From 49 pts to hundreds??? Crazy.

there's no shame in losing. every runner will underperform, or simply have a lousy race. but it's what you do when underperforming that makes you a stronger runner.

on NAU's worst race in 2019 they still came in 2nd. they had a terrible start, one of their guys even fell, and they spent the whole race making surges and working as a team to get back into the fight. they showed a lot of pride and mental fortitude in how they finished.

On OSU's worst race of 2024 they basically gave up. Dave Smith even said in the post race interview he saw them at 2K and they looked defeated. that's a terrible sign for a team as heralded as they are. aside from Mussau, they basically accepted it and folded in the face of adversity. in my opinion their outcome was a result of the mental game rather than physical.

Makes sense, for a team that talented to do so poorly. Pressure is a funny thing, does that.

Has he ever won a national championship without having a foreign runner in his top five?

Please make a list of off the teams that won a National title without a single international athlete in their lineup.

BYU for starters

Bad meaning good? Did you go to OSU cause your English needs some work.

(Not meant to be racist guys).

German Fernandez was never the same after his time with Dave Smith.

OSU 2023 did it with 5 non domestic athletes in their top 7. As for teams with no foreigners: Colorado 2001, Stanford 2002+2003. There are plenty of them. Colorado and Stanford had minimal foreigners(especially Colorado).

Now the argument is with "minimal" foreigners. The goalposts have been moved. Gotcha.

How do you feel about West Virginia's 2nd place finish with 4/5 being international?
What about Providence's 3rd place finish with 4/5 being international?
On the women's side - every team other than BYU, Virginia, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Tennessee, & Texas had international athletes in their lineup.

Enough of the international athlete/team whining. If you don't like competition and want things handed to you, go partake in your local run club.

Dave Smith's public persona shows a lot. This year he appeared nervous and scared in every interview. On multiple occasions he all but publicly shamed Laban Kipkemboi, a clearly incredibly talented freshman who is likely still adapting to life in the states, for going out too fast in races. A good coach stands up for his team and sings their praises in interviews, Dave Smith was almost exclusively critical. I get the idea of trying to keep your guys's egos low but public facing put downs are not the place to do that. I'm not saying this is easy, but a good coach would work to channel the teams confidence into something productive, not cut it off. He also would regularly say they are not the favorites to win - what purpose does that serve?? In my mind it is indactive of a shaky leader who was not prepared to win.

If you want to win you need to recruit the best guys possible, but if they don't pull off the win its all on the coach. If they win then its like oh well he just got the best guys in the country of course they won. People ignore the fact that everyone has a limit and when you are recruiting the top guys in the country then the odds are high that the ceiling is close. If coaches just wanted people to think they were great coaches they would just recruit nobodies and turn them into competent athletes.

He may be bad, but is he this bad - https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=13184689

Seriously, what is nandrolone? I never heard of it before Shelby and I've been coaching for 30 years.